[roryirvine]

The doctors vs administrators argument swings back and forth every 15-20 years or so. More (and better) tech might change things a bit but, in truth, it's mostly just a slightly different form of the "more administration" side of the debate.

But, actually, some of the tech programmes from the past decade have been effective - NHS Digital & NHSX, the NHS Spine, the work that's led to the Single Patient Record. All much smaller, simpler, and more agile than the gigantic, nightmarish NPfIT money pit of the 2000s. The post-Covid reorg, putting everything under NHS England, inevitably killed some of the momentum but there was real value created and people are doing their best to learn from the experience.

As you say, labour is the real cost driver - but a lot of that labour ought to be done under the banner of Social Care rather than the NHS. Of course, fixing Social Care isn't exactly simple, and will become almost impossible should the nativist right succeed in slashing the supply of care workers.